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[226] The Flemish sculptor Jean-Pierre-Antoine Tassaert (Jan Peter Anton Tassaert) later portrayed Catherine II of Russia as Athena in a marble bust in 1774. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Herse, Aglaulus, and Pandrosus go to the temple to offer sacrifices to Athena. Perseus made his name by killing Medusa, a monster whose gaze turned . Athena's Introduction Athena is the Greek goddess of wisdom and war. Despite her immense power, she was depicted as highly competitive with both mortals and other gods. She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name. Her superiority also derived in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and the patriotism of Homer's predecessors, Ares being of foreign origin. Out of envy, the other athletes murdered her, but Athena took pity in her and transformed her dead body into a myrtle, a plant thereafter as favoured by her as the olive was. The handicrafts she is most known. The goddess Athena, wearing a helmet. "It produced a sound as from myriad roaring dragons (Iliad, 4.17) and was borne by Athena in battle and among them went bright-eyed Athene, holding the precious aegis which is ageless and immortal: a hundred tassels of pure gold hang fluttering from it, tight-woven each of them, and each the worth of a hundred oxen."[2]. Robert Graves in The Greek Myths (1955) asserts that the aegis in its Libyan sense had been a shamanic pouch containing various ritual objects, bearing the device of a monstrous serpent-haired visage with tusk-like teeth and a protruding tongue which was meant to frighten away the uninitiated. [106][12][121][122] In an alternative variation of the same myth, Pallas was instead Athena's father,[106][12] who attempted to assault his own daughter,[123] causing Athena to kill him and take his skin as a trophy. It is sometimes represented on the statues of Roman emperors, heroes, and warriors, and on cameos and vases. [114] Fragments attributed by the Christian Eusebius of Caesarea to the semi-legendary Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon, which Eusebius thought had been written before the Trojan war, make Athena instead the daughter of Cronus, a king of Byblos who visited "the inhabitable world" and bequeathed Attica to Athena. Dyeus). The second-century AD Christian apologist Justin Martyr takes issue with those pagans who erect at springs images of Kore, whom he interprets as Athena: "They said that Athena was the daughter of Zeus not from intercourse, but when the god had in mind the making of a world through a word (logos) his first thought was Athena. She was known as Polias and Poliouchos (both derived from polis, meaning "city-state"), and her temples were usually located atop the fortified acropolis in the central part of the city. Athena was probably a pre-Hellenic goddess and was later taken over by the Greeks. This was supposedly the origin of calling Athena's sacred olive tree moria, for Halirrhotius's attempt at revenge proved fatal (moros in Greek). [163] She appears in Nausicaa's dreams to ensure that the princess rescues Odysseus and plays a role in his eventual escort to Ithaca. Athena, the patron goddess of the city of Athens, is associated with over a dozen sacred symbols from which she derived her powers. In ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Athena kept an owl on her shoulder that revealed truths to her and represented wisdom and knowledge. [49] As the patroness of heroes and warriors, Athena was believed to favor those who used cunning and intelligence rather than brute strength. [20] However, the inscription quoted seems to be very similar to "a-ta-n-t wa-ya", quoted as SY Za 1 by Jan Best. In others, such as Hesiod's Theogony, Zeus swallows his consort Metis, who was pregnant with Athena; in this version, Athena is first born within Zeus and then escapes from his body through his forehead. [64] The temple was dedicated by Alexander the Great[65] and an inscription from the temple declaring his dedication is now held in the British Museum. [148][150] According to Pindar's Thirteenth Olympian Ode, Athena helped the hero Bellerophon tame the winged horse Pegasus by giving him a bit. Athena's origin story in Greek mythology is one of particular interest. [101] Then Zeus experienced an enormous headache. [5] The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens is dedicated to her. Aglaulus demands money in exchange. [237] It is traditional at exam time for students to leave offerings to the goddess with a note asking for good luck,[237] or to repent for accidentally breaking any of the college's numerous other traditions. [117], Athena also gets into a duel with Ares, the god of the brutal wars, and her male counterpart [203] Ares blames her for encouraging Diomedes to tear his beautiful flesh. [125] Athena was said to have carved the statue herself in the likeness of her dead friend Pallas. She was widely worshipped, but in modern times she is associated primarily with Athens, to which she gave her name and protection. Her birth and her contest with Poseidon, the sea god, for the suzerainty of the city were depicted on the pediments of the Parthenon, and the great festival of the Panathenaea, in July, was a celebration of her birthday. How was Athena usually pictured? The owl is one of the most recognizable of these, and is still associated with wisdom and education today. [43] During the late fifth century BC, the role of goddess of philosophy became a major aspect of Athena's cult. You can easily improve your search by specifying the number of letters in the answer. [136] In Pausanias's story, the two sisters were driven mad by the sight of the chest's contents and hurled themselves off the Acropolis, dying instantly,[137] but an Attic vase painting shows them being chased by the serpent off the edge of the cliff instead. She also holds . In the later writings of the Roman poet Ovid, Athena was said to have competed against the mortal Arachne in a weaving competition, afterward transforming Arachne into the first spider; Ovid also describes how she transformed Medusa into a Gorgon after witnessing her being raped by Poseidon in her temple. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. The aegis (/ids/ EE-jis;[1] Ancient Greek: aigs), as stated in the Iliad, is a device carried by Athena and Zeus, variously interpreted as an animal skin or a shield and sometimes featuring the head of a Gorgon. [106][98][107][104] Athena leaped from Zeus's head, fully grown and armed. Someone requested that I make an article on this goddess so I hope you like it! [185][190] Arachne scoffed and wished for a weaving contest, so she could prove her skill. Her superiority also derives in part from the vastly greater variety and importance of her functions and from the patriotism of Homers predecessors, Ares being of foreign origin. Athena placed on her aegis a symbolic representation of the severed head of the Gorgon Medusa. [47] The Greeks regarded Athena with much higher esteem than Ares. [211] The Roman goddess Minerva adopted most of Athena's Greek iconographical associations,[213] but was also integrated into the Capitoline Triad. [216] Some even viewed the Virgin Mary as a warrior maiden, much like Athena Parthenos;[216] one anecdote tells that the Virgin Mary once appeared upon the walls of Constantinople when it was under siege by the Avars, clutching a spear and urging the people to fight. [58], Athena was not only the patron goddess of Athens, but also other cities, including Argos, Sparta, Gortyn, Lindos, and Larisa. [86] Several scholars have suggested a connection to the Rigvedic god Trita,[87] who was sometimes grouped in a body of three mythological poets. [23] The early twentieth-century scholar Martin Persson Nilsson argued that the Minoan snake goddess figurines are early representations of Athena. [201][202] When the Trojan women go to the temple of Athena on the Acropolis to plead her for protection from Diomedes, Athena ignores them. [94][95][96] The earliest mention is in Book V of the Iliad, when Ares accuses Zeus of being biased in favor of Athena because "autos egeinao" (literally "you fathered her", but probably intended as "you gave birth to her"). [51][138] Pausanias records that, during the Arrhephoria, two young girls known as the Arrhephoroi, who lived near the temple of Athena Polias, would be given hidden objects by the priestess of Athena,[139] which they would carry on their heads down a natural underground passage. [139] The ritual was performed in the dead of night[139] and no one, not even the priestess, knew what the objects were. Occasionally, another god used ite.g., Apollo in the Iliad, where it provoked terror. Apollo's words became the basis of an ancient Greek idiom. [103][104] According to this version of the story, Metis transformed into many different shapes in effort to escape Zeus,[103][104] but Zeus successfully raped her and swallowed her. [130], Herodotus records that a serpent lived in a crevice on the north side of the summit of the Athenian Acropolis[130] and that the Athenians left a honey cake for it each month as an offering. Athena, also spelled Athene, in Greek religion, the city protectress, goddess of war, handicraft, and practical reason, identified by the Romans with Minerva. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). However, Athena did have a relationship with the hero and hunter, Hercules, which resulted in the birth of their son, named Perses. [210] She is most often represented dressed in armor like a male soldier[209][210][7] and wearing a Corinthian helmet raised high atop her forehead. However when Athena invented the plough, Myrmex went to the Atticans and told them that it was in fact her own invention. [130] Another version of the myth of the Athenian maidens is told in Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC17 AD); in this late variant Hermes falls in love with Herse. Many of these scenes are symbolic, representing Athenian triumph over Persia. Her materialistic symbols include her spear, the distaff and a goatskin shield called the aegis. Being the favorite child of Zeus, she had great power. The qualities that lead to victory are found on the aegis, or breastplate, that Athena wears when she goes to war: fear, strife, defense, and assault. [127] Poseidon struck the ground with his trident and a salt water spring sprang up;[127] this gave the Athenians access to trade and water. She instructs Laertes to throw his spear and to kill Eupeithes, the father of Antinous. "Athena, by the time she appears in art," Jane Ellen Harrison remarks, "has completely shed her animal form, has reduced the shapes she once wore of snake and bird to attributes, but occasionally in black-figure vase-paintings she still appears with wings. Symbols associated with Athena are many, and among them are the owl, the Aegis (her shield), the spear, and snakes. [47][48] Athena was believed to only support those fighting for a just cause[47] and was thought to view war primarily as a means to resolve conflict. [76] The word is a combination of glauks (, meaning "gleaming, silvery", and later, "bluish-green" or "gray")[77] and ps (, "eye, face"). When the Olympian deities overtook the older deities of Greece and she was born of Metis (inside Zeus who had swallowed the goddess) and "re-born" through the head of Zeus fully clothed, Athena already wore her typical garments. Goddess of wisdom and war in ancient Greek religion and mythology, Several terms redirect here. . John Tzetzes says[10] that aegis was the skin of the monstrous giant Pallas whom Athena overcame and whose name she attached to her own. [10][17] However, any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain. [24] In the third book of the Odyssey, she takes the form of a sea-eagle. Athena is associated with courage and braveness. [216] During the Middle Ages, however, many attributes of Athena were given to the Virgin Mary,[216] who, in fourth-century portrayals, was often depicted wearing the Gorgoneion. Athena taught Arachne the art of weaving and Phalanx the art of war, but when brother and sister laid together in bed, Athena was so disgusted with them that she turned them both into spiders, animals forever doomed to be eaten by their own young. [124], The palladium was a statue of Athena that was said to have stood in her temple on the Trojan Acropolis. In Greek mythology, Athena was reported to have visited mythological sites in North Africa, including Libya's Triton River and the Phlegraean plain. Corrections? The Greek aigis, has many meanings including:[3], The original meaning may have been the first, and Zeus Aigiokhos = "Zeus who holds the aegis" may have originally meant "Sky/Heaven, who holds the thunderstorm". [42] Here Athena's statue was undressed, her clothes washed, and body purified. During this period, the priestesses of Athena, or plyntrdes, performed a cleansing ritual within the Erechtheion, a sanctuary devoted to Athena and Poseidon. [112] The Etymologicum Magnum[113] instead deems Athena the daughter of the Daktyl Itonos. Others highlight the city's connection to their patron goddess, Athena, who was a significant part of Ancient Greece's polytheistic theology. Medusa wherever you're right now. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. In his dialogue Cratylus, the ancient Greek philosopher Plato (428347 BC) gives some rather imaginative etymologies of Athena's name, based on the theories of the ancient Athenians and his etymological speculations: That is a graver matter, and there, my friend, the modern interpreters of Homer may, I think, assist in explaining the view of the ancients. Her head appears on the $50 1915-S Panama-Pacific commemorative coin. [236], Athena is a natural patron of universities: At Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, a statue of Athena (a replica of the original bronze one in the arts and archaeology library) resides in the Great Hall. She may not have been described as a virgin originally, but virginity was attributed to her very early and was the basis for the interpretation of her epithets Pallas and Parthenos. "to quickly move, to shoot, dart, to put in motion": Part I, section I (Warner Books' United States Paperback Edition), https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aegis&oldid=1138900742, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2016, Wikipedia articles with style issues from January 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. She was thought to have had neither consort nor offspring. [209] As Athena Promachos, she is shown brandishing a spear. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. "[110][109], Hesiod states that Hera was so annoyed at Zeus for having given birth to a child on his own that she conceived and bore Hephaestus by herself,[101] but in Imagines 2. She was associated with birds, particularly the owl, which became famous as the citys own symbol, and with the snake. [71] Pausanias wrote that at Buporthmus there was a sanctuary of Athena Promachorma (), meaning protector of the anchorage. [125] When the Greeks captured Troy, Cassandra, the daughter of Priam, clung to the palladium for protection,[125] but Ajax the Lesser violently tore her away from it and dragged her over to the other captives. [232] Freud once described Athena as "a woman who is unapproachable and repels all sexual desires - since she displays the terrifying genitals of the Mother. [75], In Homer's epic works, Athena's most common epithet is Glaukopis (), which usually is translated as, "bright-eyed" or "with gleaming eyes". She is most famous for being the patron god of the city of Athens. [211] The most famous classical depiction of Athena was the Athena Parthenos, a now-lost 11.5m (38ft)[212] gold and ivory statue of her in the Parthenon created by the Athenian sculptor Phidias. [66], Athena was sometimes given the epithet Hippia ( "of the horses", "equestrian"),[40][67] referring to her invention of the bit, bridle, chariot, and wagon. [213], Attic black-figure exaleiptron of the birth of Athena from the head of Zeus (c. 570560 BC) by the C Painter[208], Attic red-figure kylix of Athena Promachos holding a spear and standing beside a Doric column (c. 500-490 BC), Restoration of the polychrome decoration of the Athena statue from the Aphaea temple at Aegina, c.490 BC (from the exposition "Bunte Gtter" by the Munich Glyptothek), The Mourning Athena relief (c. 470-460 BC)[211][208], Attic red-figure kylix showing Athena slaying the Giant Enceladus (c. 550500 BC), Relief of Athena and Nike slaying the Giant Alkyoneus (?) Herodotus thought he had identified the source of the aegis in ancient Libya, which was always a distant territory of ancient magic for the Greeks. [5] Now scholars generally agree that the goddess takes her name from the city;[5][7] the ending -ene is common in names of locations, but rare for personal names. [177], In his Twelfth Pythian Ode, Pindar recounts the story of how Athena invented the aulos, a kind of flute, in imitation of the lamentations of Medusa's sisters, the Gorgons, after she was beheaded by the hero Perseus. [82] It could mean various things, including "Triton-born", perhaps indicating that the homonymous sea-deity was her parent according to some early myths. [99][100][98][101] After learning that Metis was pregnant, however, he became afraid that the unborn offspring would try to overthrow him, because Gaia and Ouranos had prophesied that Metis would bear children wiser than their father. Athenas moral and military superiority to Ares derives in part from the fact that she represents the intellectual and civilized side of war and the virtues of justice and skill, whereas Ares represents mere blood lust.